Stan Gundry is Senior Vice President and Publisher at Zondervan Academic and a past president of the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS). On Friday, he posted a letter to the membership of ETS voicing concern about a resolution passed at our annual meeting last November in Atlanta. Before getting into this, a little background is in order. At last year’s meeting Owen Strachan offered a resolution affirming traditional marriage and the sexual binary taught in scripture. These kinds of resolutions are unusual at ETS, but the rationale was that such a resolution might be in order given the extraordinary Obergefell decision handed down by the Supreme Court just months before the…
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Five quick points on the ESV’s rendering of Genesis 3:16
This is not the definitive post on the translation of Genesis 3:16. But in light of controversy surrounding recent changes in the ESV, I thought I’d offer some reflections on the interpretation of this text. I am particularly interested to interact with some of the items in Scot McKnight‘s post on the topic. So here we go. But first, here is the change that was made: Permanent Text of Gen. 3:16 Previous Text of Gen. 3:16 Your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you. Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.
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10 Things You Should Know about Headship and Submission
Sam Storms has written two “10 Things” posts about the Bible’s teaching on headship and submission within marriage. Even though these are well-known biblical concepts (e.g., Eph. 5:22; 1 Cor. 11:3), they are often misunderstood, and Sam does a really good job describing what headship and submission are and what they are not. Here’s a short excerpt from the post on submission: (1) Submission (Gk., hupotasso) carries the implication of voluntary yieldedness to a recognized authority. Biblical submission is appropriate in several relational spheres: the wife to her husband (Eph. 5:22-24); children to their parents (Eph. 6:1); believers to the elders of the church (Heb. 13:17; 1 Thess. 5:12); citizens…
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The Trinity and the Covenant of Redemption
Book Notice: For those of you following recent discussions about the Trinity, you may remember that I have been pointing to the covenant of redemption (a.k.a. pactum salutis) as a potential rallying point for those on opposite sides of the trinity debate. In that connection, I recently recommended J. V. Fesko’s 2016 book: The Covenant of Redemption: Origins, Development, and Reception, Reformed Historical Theology. In addition to that book, I would also recommend Fesko’s newest work: J. V. Fesko, The Trinity and the Covenant of Redemption, Mentor (Fearn, Ross-shire, Great Britain: Christian Focus, 2016). Whereas Fesko’s earlier book is a scholarly history of the doctrine, this most recent book is…
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Marrying Creed and Conduct
“All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness…” -2 Timothy 3:16 To say that scripture is “profitable” has nothing to do with money. It simply means that scripture is useful, beneficial, or advantageous toward a certain end. In this case, Paul says that scripture is beneficial for four things: teaching, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness. John Stott suggests that these four are divided into two groups: creed and conduct. Paul now goes on to show that the profit of Scripture relates to both creed and conduct (16b, 17). The false teachers divorced them; we must marry them.…
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Herman Bavinck on the Covenant of Redemption
Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, III:214-15: This doctrine of the pact of salvation… is rooted in a scriptural idea. For as Mediator, the Son is subordinate to the Father, calls him God…, is his servant… who has been assigned a task… and who receives a reward… for the obedience accomplished… Still, this relation between Father and Son, though most clearly manifest during Christ’s sojourn on earth, was not first initiated at the time of the incarnation, for the incarnation itself is already included in the execution of the work assigned to this the Son, but occurs in eternity and therefore also existed already during the time of the Old Testament… Scripture…
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My Take-Away’s from the Trinity Debate
Over the last two months, you might have noticed that there was quite a bit of online debate concerning the Trinity. These conversations are far from over, but the initial online surge does seem to have subsided at this point. For that reason, I have wanted to share some of my reflections on what has transpired. This isn’t all that can or should be said on the topic, and perhaps some readers may think it too much. So at the risk of saying both too little and too much, here are eight take-away’s from the recent Trinity debate. 1. On Nicaea: Before this debate started, I would have identified myself…
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How to pray for God’s favor
This morning, I’ve been pondering and praying the words of Moses in Exodus 33:13: “If I have found favor in Your sight, let me know Your ways that I may know You, so that I may find favor in Your sight.” -Exodus 33:13 Notice three crucial things about this prayer, each of which illuminate how we ought to pray as well. 1. The Basis: Even though the sentence begins with “If I have found favor,” God’s favor toward Moses is not in question. We know that because God has already told Moses that his favor rests on him (v. 12), and God will tell him again “you have found favor…
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Jonathan Edwards on the “Head of the Trinity”
Last week, I noted Scott Swain’s chapter about the Son’s willing submission to the Father within the covenant of redemption. I’ve been doing some further reading on this, and it turns out that intratrinitarian relations with respect to the pactum have been a perennial discussion among reformed divines. For example, Jonathan Edwards has a fascinating essay in his “Miscellanies” about “The Economy of the Trinity and Covenant of Redemption.” The entire thing is about 6,300 words, but it is worth the effort to read it if you have the time. Edwards argues that the Father is the “head of the Trinity.” He never cites 1 Corinthians 11:3 explicitly, but I…
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The Son’s willing submission to the Father in the pactum salutis
Last month, I commended to you Michael Allen and Scott Swain’s article titled “The Obedience of the Eternal Son.” That essay was so helpful that I was eager to get my hands on their new book Christian Dogmatics (Baker, 2016) which came out earlier this year. In this book, Swain has a really helpful chapter on the Trinity which is immediately followed by a chapter on the pactum salutis (a.k.a., the covenant of redemption). This is an edited work with multiple authors. But thankfully, Swain wrote both of these chapters, and they should be read together. Among other things, Swain notes that the pactum salutis has been a fixture in reformed…
